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Mac Forum / General / Hardware / February 2006



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Mac mini power consumption

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Mogens V. - 12 Feb 2006 09:54 GMT
Anyone have experiences with power consumption on the various Mac mini
models? Numbers in watt or amps, temps...

I'm considering using a mini, using a 7200rpm disk and 1GB ram, as a
home server and partly workstation (reading mail/news nad browsing).
It'll run dns/dhcp/mailserver/samba/http, house my documentation, mail
and such..

Since it'll run 24/7, and electricity is not for free, I'm looking for
somthing powpower/lownoise, while also taking up little space.
I'm a bit worried about temps, mostly for the sake of keeping the disk
at sufficient low temps, hence cpu temps/power has special interest.

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Kind regards,
/Mogens V.

Malcolm - 12 Feb 2006 10:38 GMT
> Anyone have experiences with power consumption on the various Mac mini
> models? Numbers in watt or amps, temps...
[quoted text clipped - 8 lines]
> I'm a bit worried about temps, mostly for the sake of keeping the disk
> at sufficient low temps, hence cpu temps/power has special interest.

Maximum continuous power: 85W
Mogens V. - 12 Feb 2006 13:16 GMT
>> Anyone have experiences with power consumption on the various Mac mini
>> models? Numbers in watt or amps, temps...
[quoted text clipped - 10 lines]
>
> Maximum continuous power: 85W

Yes, this is the maximum rating, but Apple doesn't state how much the
three models consume when running idle and full tilt boogie.
Does cpuscaling work well? How much do the scale down when idle?
I'm especially interested in idle consumption on the 1.25Ghz model. The
lower consumption, the better.

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Kind regards,
/Mogens V.

Niels Jørgen Kruse - 12 Feb 2006 14:04 GMT
> Yes, this is the maximum rating, but Apple doesn't state how much the
> three models consume when running idle and full tilt boogie.
> Does cpuscaling work well? How much do the scale down when idle?
> I'm especially interested in idle consumption on the 1.25Ghz model. The
> lower consumption, the better.

Google found this quite easily:
<http://www.macintouch.com/macmini05.html#jan25>

There is also
<http://www.tomshardware.com/2005/02/16/apple_mac_mini/page7.html> if
you trust them more.

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Mvh./Regards,    Niels Jørgen Kruse,    Vanløse, Denmark

Mogens V. - 12 Feb 2006 16:13 GMT
>>Yes, this is the maximum rating, but Apple doesn't state how much the
>>three models consume when running idle and full tilt boogie.
[quoted text clipped - 8 lines]
> <http://www.tomshardware.com/2005/02/16/apple_mac_mini/page7.html> if
> you trust them more.

Facing the shame: Didn't look hard enough :)  Thanks for the links.
20-25 watts idle or slow working are good enough for my purposes.
A Bit difficult to match even a with S754 Turion based SFF pc.

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Kind regards,
/Mogens V.

David Lesher - 14 Feb 2006 04:11 GMT
>Anyone have experiences with power consumption on the various Mac mini
>models? Numbers in watt or amps, temps...

I measured one with a Kill-o-Watt; idle it was drawing about 9 watts;
sorry I don't recall the KWH for a day's use but if you have to ask,
you can't afford the box...

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Mogens V. - 14 Feb 2006 18:39 GMT
>>Anyone have experiences with power consumption on the various Mac mini
>>models? Numbers in watt or amps, temps...
>
> I measured one with a Kill-o-Watt; idle it was drawing about 9 watts;

I guess this is the 1.42Ghz model..

> sorry I don't recall the KWH for a day's use but if you have to ask,
> you can't afford the box...

;) but not quite true. I'll shop for a used one, because I'll void the
warranty by installing 1gig and a 7200 disk anyways.
I've since read some different figures. IIRC, the 1.25Ghz model should
draw down to some 5 watts idle, ~20 watt running normally (whatever that
is), 28 watt watching a DVD, and up to 40 watt booting an install media.

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Kind regards,
Mogens V.

Niels Jørgen Kruse - 15 Feb 2006 12:33 GMT
> I've since read some different figures. IIRC, the 1.25Ghz model should
> draw down to some 5 watts idle, ~20 watt running normally (whatever that
> is), 28 watt watching a DVD, and up to 40 watt booting an install media.

"idle" here almost certainly means sleeping, which is no good for a
server.

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Mvh./Regards,    Niels Jørgen Kruse,    Vanløse, Denmark

Mogens V. - 15 Feb 2006 21:38 GMT
>>I've since read some different figures. IIRC, the 1.25Ghz model should
>>draw down to some 5 watts idle, ~20 watt running normally (whatever that
>>is), 28 watt watching a DVD, and up to 40 watt booting an install media.
>
> "idle" here almost certainly means sleeping, which is no good for a
> server.

Yes and no. Dunno what idle might mean in Apple terms; elsewhere it
usually doesn't mean sleeping. Idle for a homeserver isn't that bad.

Actually, I expect my server to be idle ~90-95% of the time. It's
supposed to just sit there, holding my mail and docs, waiting for me to
connect from work when I need it.
I do need to be able to read mail/news/web, and do a bit of programming
when I'm too lazy to boot another, though.

So I might expect comsumption to be somewhere between idle and the 20 or
so watts for 'normal' use.

And no, I can't use VIA Epia, should someone suggest that.

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Kind regards,
Mogens V.

aaJoe - 22 Feb 2006 17:29 GMT
> >>Anyone have experiences with power consumption on the various Mac mini
> >>models? Numbers in watt or amps, temps...
[quoted text clipped - 3 lines]
> ;) but not quite true. I'll shop for a used one, because I'll void the
> warranty by installing 1gig and a 7200 disk anyways.

Why?  Its easy to disassemble it.  Get rid of that slow 4200 rpm laptop
drive and get a 2.5" to 3.5" IDE adapter.  Use a gig of ram and things
will be like a normal computer.
 
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